Hi all,
The Presentations for Librarians blog has moved to the WordPress platform. All content from this blog has been migrated there.
Please visit http://presentations4librarians.wordpress.com for the new blog. Content from my website (www.hilyer.info/presentations) will also be migrated to the WordPress site.
See you later!
Lee
Friday, June 6, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thought for the day...
"Create presentations that have more in common with a documentary film than an overhead transparency. "
Source: Carmine Gallo, "Rethinking the presentation." BusinessWeek. April 4, 2008.
Slides with pictures are remembered better (the picture superiority effect) and are also more efficiently processed in working memory than slides with lots of text.
Ditch the text, people, and fill your slides with photos. Don't know where to get good photos? Try the Stock Exchange or Flickr. Both sites are FREE!!
Contributors to Stock Exchange license their images but the terms are usually quite liberal, especially for presentations. Flickr lets its users designate their photos as Creative Commons and in fact, many of my own photos are free for you to use in your presentations.
Visit my Flickr page and feel free to download and use any of my images in your own presentations. Enjoy!
Peace out,
Lee
Source: Carmine Gallo, "Rethinking the presentation." BusinessWeek. April 4, 2008.
Slides with pictures are remembered better (the picture superiority effect) and are also more efficiently processed in working memory than slides with lots of text.
Ditch the text, people, and fill your slides with photos. Don't know where to get good photos? Try the Stock Exchange or Flickr. Both sites are FREE!!
Contributors to Stock Exchange license their images but the terms are usually quite liberal, especially for presentations. Flickr lets its users designate their photos as Creative Commons and in fact, many of my own photos are free for you to use in your presentations.
Visit my Flickr page and feel free to download and use any of my images in your own presentations. Enjoy!
Peace out,
Lee
Friday, March 14, 2008
Honored and Humbled
I've written three books over the past six years, and as a librarian, I think the most exciting part is to see when libraries buy them and add them to their collections. My latest, Presentations for Librarians, is now owned by 23 libraries and counting around the world (according to Worldcat). They include places like Singapore, Auckland (New Zealand), Knoxville, Tarragona (Spain) and the British Library in London.
Wow. To think that a guy from Texas (me) has managed to write some books that have ended up in some of the world's greatest libraries is just amazing. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to share with my colleagues, and am humbled that people at these libraries have selected my books to add to their collections.
So I want to send a big 'thank you' to everyone and every library who has bought copies of my books and thank you for letting me share with you.
Have a great weekend!
Peace,
Lee
Wow. To think that a guy from Texas (me) has managed to write some books that have ended up in some of the world's greatest libraries is just amazing. I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to share with my colleagues, and am humbled that people at these libraries have selected my books to add to their collections.
So I want to send a big 'thank you' to everyone and every library who has bought copies of my books and thank you for letting me share with you.
Have a great weekend!
Peace,
Lee
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Thought for the day...
Written on the staircase in the Design Museum in London:
"Information is only useful when it can be understood."--Muriel Cooper
I love this quote and it sums up what I am trying to change about library presentations. Sure, we probably provide oodles of information to our audiences when we present, but are they really understanding what we say?
Research tells us that mental effort is required for processing of information into long-term storage. Mental effort is elicited through "working" with the material: class/presentation activities, reading and reflection, synthesis of the information presented with existing information, etc. This process takes time and structure, hence the reason that elementary school teachers, for example, in addition to lecturing on multiplication and long division, have the students practice worksheets, use math manipulatives (Unifix cubes, for those in the know), play games, sing songs and more, all in an effort to have students not only receive the information, but understand it.
Yet somehow between school and the real world, we've forgotten that people need time and practice with new information in order to be able to truly understand and make use of it. Yes, adult learners do differ from younger children and adolescents, but the fundamentals of human learning don't differ in the need for time to process information and to "roll it around" in your head to make sense of something.
Presentations of the conference variety often are full of information, yet the audience has little time or opportunity to actually work with the new information and integrate it into their own knowledge. You can help your audience by reducing the amount of content covered and focusing on only the most important points. You can also help by providing explicit guidance and "scaffolding" for your audience.
For example, if you have four points to cover, give the audience a list of your four points at the beginning of your presentation, expand on your points during your presentation, then reiterate them again at the close of your talk. Repeating yourself feels stupid, I know, but repetition is key to encoding some information into long-term memory. You can also use a technique known as "signaling," where you explicitly tell the audience that, in essence, "this is an important point."
There are many other techniques you can use to foster not just a grand and totally useless "data-dump" presentation, but one in which your audience leaves with some "understanding" about your topic. I'll post about those in the future.
And please, if you're reading the blog, I'd love to get your comments and feedback!
Peace out,
Lee
"Information is only useful when it can be understood."--Muriel Cooper
I love this quote and it sums up what I am trying to change about library presentations. Sure, we probably provide oodles of information to our audiences when we present, but are they really understanding what we say?
Research tells us that mental effort is required for processing of information into long-term storage. Mental effort is elicited through "working" with the material: class/presentation activities, reading and reflection, synthesis of the information presented with existing information, etc. This process takes time and structure, hence the reason that elementary school teachers, for example, in addition to lecturing on multiplication and long division, have the students practice worksheets, use math manipulatives (Unifix cubes, for those in the know), play games, sing songs and more, all in an effort to have students not only receive the information, but understand it.
Yet somehow between school and the real world, we've forgotten that people need time and practice with new information in order to be able to truly understand and make use of it. Yes, adult learners do differ from younger children and adolescents, but the fundamentals of human learning don't differ in the need for time to process information and to "roll it around" in your head to make sense of something.
Presentations of the conference variety often are full of information, yet the audience has little time or opportunity to actually work with the new information and integrate it into their own knowledge. You can help your audience by reducing the amount of content covered and focusing on only the most important points. You can also help by providing explicit guidance and "scaffolding" for your audience.
For example, if you have four points to cover, give the audience a list of your four points at the beginning of your presentation, expand on your points during your presentation, then reiterate them again at the close of your talk. Repeating yourself feels stupid, I know, but repetition is key to encoding some information into long-term memory. You can also use a technique known as "signaling," where you explicitly tell the audience that, in essence, "this is an important point."
There are many other techniques you can use to foster not just a grand and totally useless "data-dump" presentation, but one in which your audience leaves with some "understanding" about your topic. I'll post about those in the future.
And please, if you're reading the blog, I'd love to get your comments and feedback!
Peace out,
Lee
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Why presentations by librarians often stink...
While preparing for a workshop with other librarians in my area, we've been discussing how much material to cover in our allotted time period (3 hours). I've been arguing that "less is more," to quote Mies van der Rohe, when it comes to how much material to present and suggesting that we seriously curtail the number of topics to cover.
Audience members are not empty vessels waiting to be filled up during a presentation--they want to learn something, and attempting to cram anything and everything into a short time period is not going to be successful for either the audience or for the presenters.
One of the librarians indicated that they only needed thirty minutes for a particular topic since they could "...talk really fast." Sigh. How much do you think the audience is going to learn if the presenter is speaking rapid-fire and not giving the audience time to process the information presented? (The answer is: pretty much next to nothing.).
Our workshops and conferences are not going to improve if we don't start putting the needs of our audience first, instead of our needs or the "needs" of the material.
Presenters and instructors need to vigorously edit their presented content, and I mean vigorously. Edit, edit and then edit some more. Present only the most important information during the presentation, then provide additional detail in handouts for the audience to take away and read at their leisure. Believe me, you will be doing your audience and yourself a favor.
You can read Chapter 1 of my book for more information about how people learn (and I mean really learn), or you can read Cliff Atkinson's excellent book on PowerPoint presentations, now in its second edition. (Honestly, if you read nothing else, read Atkinson's book - it will change your presentation style forever.)
Bottom line: a presentation or a workshop is not an opportunity for you to "talk really fast" and slam the audience with reams of content. It is an opportunity for you to help your audience learn the basics of your presented content, and to inspire them to seek out more information on it, either through handouts, a post-presentation website, or a blog.
Now, go forth and present!
Lee
Audience members are not empty vessels waiting to be filled up during a presentation--they want to learn something, and attempting to cram anything and everything into a short time period is not going to be successful for either the audience or for the presenters.
One of the librarians indicated that they only needed thirty minutes for a particular topic since they could "...talk really fast." Sigh. How much do you think the audience is going to learn if the presenter is speaking rapid-fire and not giving the audience time to process the information presented? (The answer is: pretty much next to nothing.).
Our workshops and conferences are not going to improve if we don't start putting the needs of our audience first, instead of our needs or the "needs" of the material.
Presenters and instructors need to vigorously edit their presented content, and I mean vigorously. Edit, edit and then edit some more. Present only the most important information during the presentation, then provide additional detail in handouts for the audience to take away and read at their leisure. Believe me, you will be doing your audience and yourself a favor.
You can read Chapter 1 of my book for more information about how people learn (and I mean really learn), or you can read Cliff Atkinson's excellent book on PowerPoint presentations, now in its second edition. (Honestly, if you read nothing else, read Atkinson's book - it will change your presentation style forever.)
Bottom line: a presentation or a workshop is not an opportunity for you to "talk really fast" and slam the audience with reams of content. It is an opportunity for you to help your audience learn the basics of your presented content, and to inspire them to seek out more information on it, either through handouts, a post-presentation website, or a blog.
Now, go forth and present!
Lee
Friday, December 7, 2007
Found in the blogosphere...
I recently set up a "subscription" in del.icio.us to track entries with the tag 'presentation.' As the semester winds down here and our students bury their heads in their books and notes for their final exams, I started looking at some of the entries.
Scott Elias posted an entry on his blog about presentating and included a superb annotated PDF of his presentation. I don't know the guy, but I'd like to thank him for his contribution to improving presentations for educators.
It'll take you about 5-10 minutes to go through the presentation. It will be time well-spent.
The blog post is here: http://blog.scottjelias.net/2007/11/presenting_about_presenting.html
and the PDF itself is here: http://blog.scottjelias.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/slides.pdf
Have a great weekend!
Peace out,
Lee
Scott Elias posted an entry on his blog about presentating and included a superb annotated PDF of his presentation. I don't know the guy, but I'd like to thank him for his contribution to improving presentations for educators.
It'll take you about 5-10 minutes to go through the presentation. It will be time well-spent.
The blog post is here: http://blog.scottjelias.net/2007/11/presenting_about_presenting.html
and the PDF itself is here: http://blog.scottjelias.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/slides.pdf
Have a great weekend!
Peace out,
Lee
Friday, November 30, 2007
del.icio.us list for Presentations
Good afternoon!
I've been using del.icio.us for a while and have built up a group of bookmarks related to presentations. You can find it at: http://del.icio.us/lhilyer/presentations.
I'm getting ready to update it with links from my upcoming book, but it's got a few goodies in it already. Likewise, feel free to add me to your del.icio.us network (click the network link in your del.icio.us account, then type "lhilyer" and click Add. Then, whenever I add some new links on presentations, you'll get them also.
Have a great day!
Lee
P.S. Found this great blog post about color palettes based on "Old Masters:" http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/20/color-inspiration-from-the-masters-of-painting/. I've mentioned Colourlovers.com before - it's a fantastic site.
I've been using del.icio.us for a while and have built up a group of bookmarks related to presentations. You can find it at: http://del.icio.us/lhilyer/presentations.
I'm getting ready to update it with links from my upcoming book, but it's got a few goodies in it already. Likewise, feel free to add me to your del.icio.us network (click the network link in your del.icio.us account, then type "lhilyer" and click Add. Then, whenever I add some new links on presentations, you'll get them also.
Have a great day!
Lee
P.S. Found this great blog post about color palettes based on "Old Masters:" http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/20/color-inspiration-from-the-masters-of-painting/. I've mentioned Colourlovers.com before - it's a fantastic site.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)